Oracle Blog

links for 2009-09-14

The App Store's Exclusionary PoliciesGruber & Spiers both spot-on here. Apple is busily spending its social capital, and probably cares little about all this angst, but this anti-competitive behaviour is really going to be a problem to them globally in the future if they don't fix it.

DRM is Helping Spore Make History As the Most Pirated Game EverMy friend bought a copy of this game. Then his computer failed. He's now used all three of his installs in just a few days, and has a worthless piece of shiny plastic to show for it. What should he do next? The obvious answer is to download the "neutered" version and use that, but what would be his legal standing if he did so? And why is the "illegal" version better value than the "legal" version?

Spore's Piracy Problem - Forbes.com"DRM can encourage the best customers to behave slightly better," he says. "It will never address the masses of non-customers downloading your product." -- I disagree. What EA have done to Spore makes paying customers more likely to resort to a downloaded version. | "EA has ... simply changed the copy protection method" -- EA need to wake up and realise their old method was equally unacceptable and reprehensible.

How I learned to love the game piratesVery interesting article by a games producer who has dropped DRM, lower prices and presumably embraces the "pirates" as a marketing channel. I wonder how it has affected his business?